Disembarkation of humanitarian aid transported by the ship 'Open Arms' to Gaza concludes

The EU celebrates the operation as a ray of hope but calls for the arrival of more aid "especially by land"

This Saturday the disembarkation of almost 200 tons of humanitarian aid transported by the 'Open Arms' ship to the coast of the Gaza Strip was completed.

The NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK), the main person responsible for the operation, has reported the start of the distribution. "The entire shipment has been unloaded and is being prepared for distribution on the Gaza coast," the organization noted.

The ship departed last Tuesday from the port of Larnaca, in Cyprus, and arrived on the coast of the Gaza Strip on Friday on the pilot trip to try to establish a maritime humanitarian corridor called Operation Amalthea.

In a message published late on Friday on his social network account

"The 'Open Arms' has arrived in Gaza to begin the landing of food and water. I want to thank World Central Kitchen for this act of humanity, a ray of hope in dark times," said the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and EU Security Policy.

The NGO founded by the Spanish chef José Andrés is already preparing a second shipment of humanitarian aid from Cyprus with 240 more tons of food, although at the moment there is no date for its departure.

WCK manages, in collaboration with Gazan organizations, 60 community kitchens in the Gaza Strip that prepare food for the population. Since the start of the conflict in October, the organization has brought 1,500 trucks of aid to the Palestinian enclave and prepared 37 million meals.

NGOs such as Save the Children have expressed serious doubts about the usefulness of maritime corridors like this, understanding that "they are costly, ineffective and a distraction from the critical solution to saving the lives of children and families in Gaza."

Furthermore, he has warned that the United States' plans to complete this maritime corridor with the construction of a temporary port in front of the Strip "are going to take too long."

In this sense, Borrell added that humanitarian aid also has to reach Gaza "urgently and by all possible means, especially by land, to prevent the famine from spreading."

The authorities of the Gaza Strip, controlled by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), have also asked the international community to "rethink" the "viability" of the maritime corridor and have expressed their doubts about this mechanism due to the number of help and the slowness of the process. For this reason, they have claimed to "pressure" Israel for the entry of convoys by land.